Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley
by Nelson Greene
O'Connor Brothers Publishers, Fort Plain, NY 1915

CHAPTER XXII.
1783-February 9, Col. Willett's Attempt to Capture Fort Oswego-Privations of the American Troops on the Return Trip.

One of the last military enterprises (and possibly the very final one) on which Colonel Willett set out from Fort Plain was the attempt to capture the Important British fortification of Oswego in February, 1783. This, as per Washington's report to congress, was an expedition in which a force of 500 Americans were engaged under Willett. They were troops of the New York line and part of a Rhode Island regiment and were all probably then stationed at the valley posts of which Fort Plain was the headquarters, and it was doubtless here that the planning and final preparations, for the Oswego expedition, were made. Of this little known enterprise, one of the last of the Revolution, Simms has the following:

"Said Moses Nelson, an American prisoner there [at Oswego] in the spring of 1782, when the enemy set about rebuilding Fort Oswego, three officers, Capt. Nellis, Lieut. James Hare, and Ensign Robert Nellis, a son of the captain and all of the forester service had charge of the Indians there employed. [These Tory Nellises may have been of the Palatine Nellis family.] Nelson and two other lads, also prisoners, accompanied this party which was conveyed in a sloop, as waiters. About 100 persons were employed in building this fortress, which occupied most of the season. The winter following, Nelson remained at this tort and was in it when Col. Willett advanced with a body of troops, February 9, 1783, with the intention of taking it by surprise. The enterprise is said to have been abortive in consequence of Col. Willett's guide, who was an Oneida Indian, having lost his way in the night when within a few miles of the fort. The men were illy provided for their return-certain victory having been anticipated-and their sufferings were, in consequence, very severe. This enterprise was undertaken agreeable to the orders of Gen. Washington.

"Col. Willett, possibly, may not have known, as well as Washington did, that Fort Oswego had been so strongly fitted up the preceding year and consequently the difficulties he had to encounter before its capture. Be that as it may, the probability is, that had the attack been made, the impossibility of scaling the walls would have frustrated the design, with the loss of many brave men. The fort was surrounded by a deep moat, in which were planted many sharp pickets. From the lower part of the walls projected down and outward another row of heavy pickets. A drawbridge enabled the inmates to pass out and in, which was drawn up and secured to the wall every night. The corners [of the fort] were built out so that mounted cannon commanded the trenches. Two of Willett's men, badly frozen, entered the fort in the morning, surrendering themselves prisoners, from whom the garrison learned the object of the enterprise. The ladders prepared by Willett to scale the walls were left on his return, and a party of British soldiers went and brought them in. Said the American prisoner Nelson, 'The longest of them, when placed against the walls inside the pickets, reached only about two-thirds of the way to the top.' The post was strongly garrisoned and it was the opinion of Nelson that the accident or treachery which misled the troops was most providential, tending to save Col. Willett from defeat and most of his men from certain death."

John Roof of Canajoharie, who was a private in this ill-fated expedition, told Simms that so certain was Willett of success that insufficient provisions were taken along for the journey out and back to the valley. There were several dogs with the American troops at the start and these were killed on the out trip, as their barking, it was feared, would betray the expedition to the enemy. On the wintry trip back the Buffering and famished soldiers were glad to dig these animals out of the snow and eat them. The return of the Americans to the valley torts must have been a trip of great privation. Gen. Washington reported the failure of Willett's attempt on Oswego to the President of Congress, February 25, 1783, as follows:

"Sir-I am sorry to acquaint your Excellency-for the information of Congress-that a project which I had formed for attacking the enemy's fort at Oswego-as soon as the sleighing should be good, and the ice of the Oneida lake should have acquired sufficient thickness to admit the passage of a detachment-has miscarried. The report of Col. Willett, to whom I had entrusted the command of the party, consisting of a part of the Rhode Island regiment and the State troops of New York-in all about 500 men- will assign reasons for the disappointment."

Washington further said that, although the expedition had failed, "I am certain nothing depending upon Col. Willett, to give efficiency to it, was wanting."

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